Scared to open the package: adventures in game writer bribery

Those who write about games often get their copies of the game directly from …

One of the best perks of my job is the ability to play games before they come out, and of course I get copies sent to my door. It's not a bad deal. Most of the time the games come in nondescript boxes containing nothing more than the game, or sometimes just a disc and a press pack, but there are other times when quite a bit more is sent.

Companies are constantly getting creative when they send things along with their games, hoping to wring another post out of news-starved blogs, or to get the attention of the writer, or sometimes just to straight-up bribe the reviewer. This leads to weird, unexplainable, and sometimes quite expensive things showing up with the game. This is just a short list of some things that have been sent, or offered, to those who write about the games we play.

$200 check for Dante's Inferno

While anyone who reviews games has been accused of bribery at some point when readers don't agree with the final score (An 8? For this game? HOW DARE HE!) it's rare that a company just sends the press a check. EA's gimmick with Dante's Inferno was sending out a series of items that corresponded to the seven deadly sins, and the $200 check was for greed.

Some outlets burned the checks, others donated the money, but everyone was weirded out by the move. "The packaging says that 'by cashing this check you succumb to avarice by hoarding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality,'" Joystiq wrote."If your SAT dictionary isn't at arm's length, that last one means wastefulness." They ultimately donated the check to a charity dedicated to female leadership, as an act of protest against some of the less-forward-thinking stunts that were a part of the Dante campaign.

If that wasn't weird enough, EA actually added images into the source code of many popular sites as a publicity stunt. While it's not in the same class as sending an editor a check for $200, it's certainly creepy.

Ars Technica received a copy of the book, and the DVD of the movie. I still have both. BIAS.

Brass knuckles... that ended up being illegal

The press pack for EA's Godfather 2 included a few surprises, including a cigar, some matches, a thin wire for choking fools... and, of course, brass knuckles. Brass knuckles that ended up being illegal in many states.

Trips to experience weightlessness

If you want an example of a whole lot of money being spent on the gaming press, it's hard to beat the trip Kotaku accepted to promote NCSoft's Tabula Rasa back in 2007. Writer Mike Fahey was given a trip on the "vomit comet," a plane that flies very high and then dives rapidly to give passengers a few seconds of weightlessness. Upon landing, he was then treated to champagne and a free flight suit. The cost of a flight like Fahey's starts at $5,000 per person. The flight suit is sold for $65, and the crew also received a framed picture of the group.

"I'm going to treasure the photo forever, and the duffel bag and complimentary flight suit are sure nice, but as I stated earlier...they are nothing compared to the once-in-a-lifetime experience I just went through," Fahey wrote. "I cannot thank Garriott and crew enough for making this childhood dream come true."